The Longest Games in MLB History

The longest game in MLB history by innings was a 26-inning marathon between the Brooklyn Robins and Boston Braves on May 1, 1920, which ended in a 1-1 tie when it was finally called for darkness. No game before or since has reached 26 innings, and the pair of pitchers who started it each threw all 26.

Baseball has no clock, which is what makes its longest games so extraordinary: they simply keep going until someone wins or the light runs out. A handful of these contests stretched deep into a second afternoon and produced feats of endurance no other sport can match. Here is the full leaderboard of the longest games in MLB history, measured by innings and by time, and why the top mark is now untouchable. All figures are as of the 2025 season.

The record: 26 innings in 1920

On May 1, 1920, at Braves Field in Boston, the Brooklyn Robins (later renamed the Dodgers) and the Boston Braves played to a 1-1 standstill over 26 innings before the umpires called it because of darkness. Remarkably, both starting pitchers, Brooklyn’s Leon Cadore and Boston’s Joe Oeschger, pitched the entire game, a complete-game workload that would be unthinkable today.

The game lasted just 3 hours and 50 minutes, faster than many nine-inning games now, because the era’s hitters swung early and pitchers worked quickly. It remains the only 26-inning game in Major League history and the definitive answer to the question of baseball’s longest game.

The full leaderboard of the longest MLB games

The table below ranks the longest games in MLB history by innings.

Innings	Matchup	Date	Result
26	Brooklyn Robins at Boston Braves	May 1, 1920	1-1 tie (darkness)
25	St. Louis Cardinals at New York Mets	Sep 11, 1974	Cardinals 4-3
25	Chicago White Sox at Milwaukee Brewers	May 8-9, 1984	White Sox 7-6
24	Houston Astros at New York Mets	Apr 15, 1968	Astros 1-0
24	Detroit Tigers at Philadelphia Athletics	Jul 21, 1945	1-1 tie
23	San Francisco Giants at New York Mets	May 31, 1964	Giants 8-6
22	Washington Senators at Cleveland	Sep 14, 1971	Senators 8-6
22	Los Angeles Dodgers at Montreal Expos	Aug 23, 1989	Dodgers 1-0
21	Detroit Tigers at Chicago White Sox	May 24, 1929	Tigers 6-5

Several of these games ended 1-0 or 1-1, a reminder that marathons usually happen when two pitching staffs simply refuse to give up a run. The Mets appear three times on the list, the unfortunate victims of some of the sport’s longest nights.

The longest game by time: 8 hours, 6 minutes

While the 1920 game is the longest by innings, the White Sox-Brewers game of May 1984 is the longest by the clock. It was suspended after 17 innings the first night with the score tied and resumed the following evening, finally ending after 25 innings and 8 hours and 6 minutes of baseball, with Chicago winning 7-6 on a Harold Baines home run. It took more than twice as long as the 26-inning 1920 game because the modern sport packs far more pitching changes, deeper counts and foul balls into every frame.

In the postseason, the longest game is Game 3 of the 2018 World Series, when the Dodgers beat the Red Sox 3-2 in 18 innings over 7 hours and 20 minutes, the longest World Series game ever by both innings and time.

Why the record is now permanent

Beginning in 2020, MLB adopted an extra-innings rule that places a runner on second base to start each half-inning past the ninth. The change was designed to end games faster, and it has: multi-inning extra frames now almost always produce a quick result. That makes a 20-plus-inning game, let alone a 26-inning one, effectively impossible, so the marks set in 1920 and 1984 will very likely stand forever.

For other feats that push baseball to its physical extreme, see our leaderboards on the fastest pitch in MLB history and the longest home run ever hit. Games this long also test a staff’s best arms, the same pitchers who chase marks on our most strikeouts by a pitcher list, and the durability that defines the most World Series wins.

Why these games matter

Baseball’s longest games are monuments to endurance in a sport with no time limit. The 26-inning tie of 1920 captured an age when pitchers finished what they started, while the 8-hour White Sox-Brewers slog showed how much the modern game has changed. Both records now sit safely out of reach.

The short version: the longest MLB game by innings is the 26-inning Brooklyn-Boston tie of 1920, and the longest by time is the 8-hour, 6-minute White Sox win over the Brewers in 1984. As of the 2025 season, modern extra-innings rules make both records permanent.